The new, evolutionary, Xbox One

I’ve been a Xbox One user since its debut, but I’m the minority here in Spain, a country devoted to the PS4. It’s hard to defend that minor position with friends -not many can play along with me- but we can for sure defend it with facts.

One of the latest ones comes from the new update from Phil Spencer at Microsoft, who ‘has hinted that the company will offer optional hardware upgrades for the Xbox One in the future‘.

The path was clear months ago: the universal platform Microsoft is building includes the Xbox One, who will be able to execute not just games but universal apps. As The Guardian explains,

What this could mean is that the Xbox One becomes more like a PC, with Microsoft releasing updated versions at regular intervals with more powerful processors and graphics hardware. In theory, because games will be written as UWAs, older titles will remain compatible with the new machines.

An upgradable console? I don’t see this coming, but I guess Microsoft will be able to make updated, enhanced versions of the console that will improve computing and graphics power and still maintain backwards compatibility thanks to the new software paradigm.

That’s something not easy to do on other consoles, and could effectively transform the Xbox One into something that resembles more and more to a PC.

I wonder if that’s not a danger in itself. Uhm.

Follow up: Mark Walton shares my thinking at Ars Technica UK, where he develops this though with much more detail.